I should never have lost my temper with Anthony Byte. I’m sorry, I should probably introduce myself. I am Chris P. Bacon. Right now, I am grounded in my room for 127 hours. Yeah, like the movie, but I wouldn’t have to cut off my own arm to get out of this. I should probably tell you why I am grounded.

Why not start at the beginning? I was in Ms. Fay’s Honors Algebra class, when he walked in. Anthony Byte was the biggest bully ever in Giannorio High School history. He walked to the very back of the room and sat down in the chair closest to the back corner.

“Everybody, I want you to all meet Mr. Anthony Byte”, said Ms. Fay, “He just transferred here from Lawrence K. Folk High School.”

“I hadto come here. I was expelled.” Said Anthony Bytes.

He wasn’t the most pleasant of people. After class was over, Ms. Fay asked me to show him to his locker. I took 3 steps out of the classroom, and I found myself pinned up against the lockers.

“Found it.” grunted Anthony. He slugged me, right in the chest. I was on the ground, gasping for breath. He was walking down the hall, when I got back up and screamed, “Hey, where are you going!?!”

He turned around and smiled. “I am not done with you!” I screamed. This brings me to my first tip:

Tip 1: Control your anger.

I won’t go into detail as to what happened next but I’ll put it like this, I found out what the inside of locker 47 looked like.

“Chris,” said my mother, “we need to talk.”

Thus my mother ruins my flashback. So now we go forward to present time, with me siting in my bedroom.

“What?” I said.

“You know why you are in trouble, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to go to school tomorrow and apologize to him.”

“Okay.” I answered.

She then left my room and closed the door behind her.

Where was I? Oh yeah, we never did get along. Every day when I walked down the hall, he would harass me. Eventually, I just couldn’t take it anymore. So, one day, when he came down the hall to harass me, I shouted down the hall, “Hey, here comes Mr. Byte Me!” The entire hall burst into laughter. He then came up to me and shoved me against the lockers.

“What did you say?” Anthony said, with a vicious snarl.

I then pushed him away and tried to punch him. Next thing I knew, we were on the ground, punching and screaming when Ms. Fay came by.

“Boys,” she shouted, “what are you doing?!?”

She had some of the students pull us apart. “I should have both of you expelled!” she said, obviously angry.

She looked straight at me “Chris, I thought you were better than this. Detention,” then she turned around to look at Anthony, “for both of you.”

“But, that’s not fair!” I shouted “He was harassing me!”

“I don’t care what he was doing, that is no way to act at school.” said Ms. Fay. This brings me to my second tip:

Tip 2: Never respond to bullying with violence.

It was a slow day after that. Nobody would come near me in the hallways. Nobody sat next to me at lunch. I sat in the very back of the room at all of my classes. Then came detention, the cherry on the top of a great day (By the way that was sarcasm.) Anthony and I sat on opposite sides of the room, 2 hours of utter silence. But, the worst part was yet to come, the parent’s reaction.

“Mom?” I said. I then heard hurried footsteps in the hallway. “Mom?” No reaction.

“Listen, I just want to say that the only reason why I said what I said when you came home was because I care for your future.” my dad explained. “I just don’t want something like this to stop you from going to college or getting a job.”

“I understand, Dad.” I said.

“Okay, good because I was afraid this was going to turn into one of those really awkward conversations that are usually found in books or short stories that are completely irrelevant to the storyline and are only put in to take up space, but the author needs some kind of feel-good, happy-family that will not make it seem like a complete waste of words.” said my Dad.

“Yeah,” I said, “This wasn’t one of those conversations.”

He then smiled and left. This brings me to my third tip:

Tip 3: Your parents will always be there for you.

BACK TO OUR FLASHBACK!

When I got home, I tried to sneak my way up into my room, hoping that they wouldn’t notice that I was home yet.

“Chris,” said my mother, “please come into the dining room.”

I trudged into the dining room. There was my mom and dad, sitting at the dining room table.

“We need to talk.” my dad said.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said, “just a little fight at school.”

“A ‘little fight at school’? Sure, that’s not a big deal at all.” said my dad sarcastically. Now you see where I get it from.

“Dad...” I started to say.

“No,” my dad interrupted, “I already know what happened. The school called me earlier today. You fought another student at school.”

“He was harassing me!” I screamed. Nobody understood what I was going through!

“That still isn’t the way you respond to something that irritates you. You don’t see me tackling IRS agents because we have expensive bills, do you?” said my dad.

“Well,” my mom said, “there was that one time…”

“Not helping.” said my dad.

I then turned around and started to go to my room.

“And where do you think you are going?” said my mom.

“To my room.” I shot back, more disrespectfully than I had meant.

“Well, you’ll be up there for a while because you are grounded for the rest of the week.” she said, at the bottom of the staircase.

“Fine,” I screamed back, “I don’t have any friends at school anyways!!!” I stomped to my room and slammed the door. This brings me to my fourth tip:

Tip 4: Respect adults, especially your parents.

When in my room, I estimated exactly how long I would be grounded. It would be about 126 hours and 57 minutes. I just rounded it up to 127 hours.

Now here I am grounded for getting into a fight with Anthony Byte. I have a lot of things I need to apologize for. I need to apologize to Anthony, for my rude remarks, Ms. Fay, for disrespecting her, and my parents, for disrespecting them. This brings me to my fifth tip:

Tip 5: It’s never too late to apologize.

The next day, I walked up to Anthony Byte.

“Hey, Anthony.” I said.

He turned around and said sourly, “What do you want?”

“I am sorry for calling you ‘Mr. Byte Me’ and for getting into a fight with you. I was just a little angry because of all the remarks you made about me for the past couple of weeks. I know now that that was not the right way to act in that kind of situation.”

He looked surprised from my apology. “Umm, apology accepted.” he said. I stuck out my hand and he shook it. From then on we were great friends.

Next, I went to apologize to Ms. Fay.

“Ms. Fay?” I said.

“Yes?” said Ms. Fay

“I just wanted to say that I am sorry for yelling at you in the hallway a couple of days ago. That wasn’t the appropriate way to respond in that type of situation. I was just under a lot of anger and stress at the time.”

“It’s quite alright.” said Ms. Fay

The rest of the school day went on normally from there except I had a new friend, Anthony Byte. At the end of the day, I went home and apologized to my parents.

“Mom, Dad, I’m sorry for disrespecting you and getting in trouble at school. I should never have gotten into a fight with Anthony Byte but you should know that now we have forgiven each other.” I said.

“It’s okay.” said my mom.

“I am glad to see that you to have forgiven each other.” said my dad. So now, everything was back to the way it was, and now I am no longer grounded for 127 hours.